And to that place has given life - and soul - Antonio Tabucchi, in one of the finest novels of the late '900. It is in this cafe who retires Pereira. Here he drinks his usual ice-cold lemonade, to cope with the heat of an unbearable August. All around, in Lisbon and in Portugal, the Salazar regime gain strength.

Our publisher owes its name to that café. There are places and images in the history of literature, that more than others remain in the mind of the readers. They are there, like locked rooms, which sometimes are reopened. If we were to think about a village, among the many villages of the literature, we would think of Macondo in One Hundred Years of Solitude. If we were to think about a living room, we would think that one in the Ardengo’s home, from the book The indifferent of Alberto Moravia. A road? We remember that one of Kerouac, in the United States or the Midaq Alley of Naghib Mafuz, in Egypt.

When we had to think of the name of our publishing house,
we went back to the name of that cafè in Lisbon.
There is a reason, maybe.

Coffee is a pretext to create moments of meeting. We think that the book has the same function: to connect people, facilitate the exchange of knowledge. Just as a waiter at the Cafe Orchid, that talking softly to Pereira update it on the political situation in Lisbon.

Coffee is also a privileged window, from which you can watch the world just by being seated at a table, or among the people at the desk. With our initiatives and with the books that we will publish, we want to do this too: observe the world. Make available to readers elements to study it through new languages and methods.

The Orchidea Café is a bar which opposes the Salazar’s regime. We like it, because we want to be an active publisher in the cultural and social fields. It is not just about interpreting the world, we want to try to change it. [And for this purpose we will never tire of quoting the Marx’s eleventh thesis on Feuerbach: Philosophers have, until now, only interpreted the world differently; now it comes to change it]].

The literary blog is already active. Among the pages of the blog you will find our idea of literature. There we would like to know your idea. With your comments, your ideas and your cooperation, we will make of the blog an active space, where it will be possible to interpret and "do" the world.



"Literature is world" is our literary competition, through which we will select works for publication. At the moment the only way to submit your manuscripts is participating in the competitions. It will organize two per year: one for poetry, the other one for fiction.

The first, for poetry, is already active. In the autumn it will start the competition for novels.

We will seek the words that we like, between verses and scriptures.
We will pass through avant-garde and classicism, experimentation and metrics.
We want to find the best unexplored contemporary literature. And we will work to give a new dress to your words.

In this first phase, we will do just this: search between your writings an idea of world - and literature - that fascinates us.

Our window on the world is opening up. Will you pass at the Caffèrchidea?